More on LRSD tax

When the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and a Walton Foundation-paid lobbyist, long devoted critics of the Little Rock School District, lead the messaging for a quarter-billion dollars in new tax debt for the district, it is cause for caution.

I wrote earlier about my reluctance to endorse a refinancing of existing school construction debt to require as much as $250 million in additional tax payments for new schools, repairs and interest. My fear is a Trojan horse strategy by the man in control of Little Rock schools, education commissioner Johnny Key — on behalf of minders at the Walton Family Foundation and the sympathetic owner of the daily newspaper — to upgrade Little Rock school facilities ahead of a takeover of their management by private charter school operators.

At a minimum, I'd hope Key would declare opposition to a renewed legislative effort to allow private takeover of school districts in "academic distress." Little Rock meets that definition because five of its 48 schools fall short of test score proficiency. (So, too, do some charter schools, but Key's department doesn't seem to mind.)

Charter schoolers complain eternally that they don't have construction money as do local school districts. Nationwide, charter schools have difficulty selling bonds for facilities precisely because they lack a tax base. A takeover of taxpayer-financed, recently improved buildings in Little Rock thus would be a dream come true for the Walton gang.

There's been speculation that the new borrowing is meant to drive Little Rock into financial distress. That would add another justification to continued state control. Little Rock already faces deep budget cuts because of the coming loss of state desegregation aid. It faces more problems because of declining enrollment (at a loss of $6,600 per student per year) linked to expansion of charter schools. The bond refinance would dig the hole deeper. Why? Because, thanks to a growing tax base, the 12.4 mills of bond-pledged property tax currently produces millions annually in excess of the amount needed to make bond payments. State law allows capture of that money for operations, but not if it is repledged to construction debt.

A Little Rock School District expert told me:

"The borrowing of $160 million at this point, without some accommodation for the cuts that are already necessary, the operations cuts needed to fund the additional debt service and the cuts from enrollment losses, seems to be fiscally dangerous."

The Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, which spearheaded the state takeover of the school district, is working to build support for a vote on bond refinancing. Some of its members aren't wholly in the pocket of the Waltons' "school choice" alliance. One, whose devotion to the schools I credit, said:

"What are the options? We can turn the school district over to the charters, which I don't want to do. I totally get what is happening with their drain of students, but I have to work with the hand I am dealt and I worry about the kids that will be left and I do not want to abandon them. They will still live here and need a boost."

But this school advocate acknowledges a further drain of students is likely in the years ahead, maybe by 5,000 or so. Those remaining, on balance, likely will be more difficult students — poorer and further behind.

The district needs more money — even a tax INCREASE, which I'd happily support if I didn't fear state education leadership's desire for the district's constructive demise

There's little reason for trust. When not bitterly trashing Little Rock schools, Walton lobbyists and subsidized propagandists at the University of Arkansas pump misleading "research" into the pages of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The latest is that charter schools are responsible for only a small percentage of transfers out of the Little Rock School District. Others move or go to private schools, too.

This ignores a key fact. Expanding charter schools take children BEFORE they ever enter the Little Rock School District. And the state doesn't apply the same accountability standards to charter schools that it applies to Little Rock schools. Furthermore, the researchers don't talk about the success that many of those leaving the district have achieved in what the Waltonites love to brand as failures. Nor do they delve in any useful fashion into the impact of charters on the achievement of those taken away.

When they say it's all about the kids, I'm more inclined to believe it's more about the money.

Speaking of...

The agenda meeting for the Little Rock City Board this week includes a resolution for the city to pay the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce $300,000 again this year for "economic development consulting services." It's sham to subsidize corporate lobbyists. /more/

After a proposal to develop the vacant Woodruff school for apartments fell through, the Little Rock School District asked for news proposals and I've now received a list of expressions of interest. /more/

Cynthia Howell reports in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today on what amounts to the coming complete deregulation of home schooling in the state. More than 19,000 were schooled at home in 2015-16. /more/

The Waltons are funding a new model for privatizing public schools in Kansas City. Traditional public school supporters are wary. And people in Arkansas, Little Rock particularly, would do well to take note. /more/

The Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce is helping its members gin up messages to Metroplan in support of the 1950s-style highway swath that the highwaymen want to build through the heart of Little Rock's downtown. /more/

The University of Arkansas issued a news release this morning confirming a project I mentioned yesterday morning — a Walton Family Foundation grant to work with teachers in high-poverty schools. /more/

The Walton money at work: In Oakland school board races; community organizing in San Francisco, and a new teacher training program that apparently targets Little Rock. /more/

The Ford Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation announced yesterday that they are committing $3 million each — a total of $6 million — to a new program, the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative, to increase minority numbers in curatorial and administrative museum staff. /more/

The New Orleans Tribune has a devastating piece of editorial commentary, based on local reporting and test scores, that lays bare the depiction of the charterization of New Orleans public schools 12 years ago as a miracle of the "reform" movement. /more/

Blue Hog Report has some news on a Republican primary challenge of an incumbent legislator, Rep. Laurie Rushing, by Ernie Hinz of Hot Springs.

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My colleagues John Ray and Jesse Bacon and I estimate, in the first analysis of its kind for the 2018 election season, that the president's waning popularity isn't limited to coastal cities and states. The erosion of his electoral coalition has spread to The Natural State, extending far beyond the college towns and urban centers that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. From El Dorado to Sherwood, Fayetteville to Hot Springs, the president's approval rating is waning.